


if we got to know each other (how rare is that?)

by moonbeatblues



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, essek is sad and lonely please let this man into your heart, he IS the final member of the mighty nein
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22296064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonbeatblues/pseuds/moonbeatblues
Summary: essek is a strange bird. they have always said so.he wonders what they think he wants, is sure they’ll be taken aback that it’s something so selfish as friendship.essek does not move. in his mind he holds on so tight his fingers pale.—three things about essek thelyss, heir to the den thelyss, from eps 90 and 91
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast, The Mighty Nein & Essek Thelyss
Comments: 16
Kudos: 266





	if we got to know each other (how rare is that?)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from chance by angel olson— OOF

essek is a strange bird. they have always said so.

and perhaps it is not meant to be a condemnation, but how could he ever feel equal when all they say is  _you are so young, you haven’t even died yet?_ simultaneously so applauded and yet easily written off as inexperienced, and then. then there are these people who are also on their first lives, and unafraid of what that means.

he copies how he’s treated at first, knows nothing else— they’re foolish, unaware of how things work around here— but the wizard with the long red hair he keeps brushing from his blue— so blue, so strangely blue, so unlike anyone here, blue like the ocean past the empire essek went to once when he was even younger (even younger, imagine that)— eyes, he reminds essek of himself if he’d failed den thelyss, like he thought so many times he would. and that waver in his voice, all fire and fear, when he admitted and acquitted himself of the empire in the same breath, it’s like that fire’s held under his feet and frothing the blood in his veins.

and essek likes feeling needed, and likes even more to be needed like he needed the den, like he needed the queen’s faith in him. it’s annoying to abandon his work— he’s needed here, too— but the den doesn’t hug him when he teleports somewhere. the den doesn’t send him messages when it’s late and he’s home, alone and swallowed in that too-big chair and closing his eyes because he doesn’t want to see himself, not tonight. the den doesn’t give him cupcakes.

essek knows who allura vysoren is the way he knows the teacher his first teacher had— distant, blurry awareness of something impressive. he wonders if she ever teleports into walls.

they talk to the king before they talk to him, the king of the empire caleb had renounced. _maybe_ , he thinks, _they were distracted, being home_ , and that thought is even worse. he wonders, when it is all over, if they will ever call on him again. he does not think he is strong enough to call on them, doesn’t know what he would say.

_ would you like to come over for tea— mister clay, i think you’ll love the blend from the citadel gardens—?  _

_would you like to learn, caleb, the things i had to beg to learn, the things mages aren’t allowed to learn before they’ve died? will you come and keep me company— the other mages never really liked me anyway— and i can think about something else than dying? _

_that when i die, i will finally be normal, and i will finally be no longer special? that i think no one is willing to tell me how much it hurts , to die? _

_and maybe you can ask me about my legs, and i will not be afraid that you will offer to fix them, caleb? that maybe you will just look at me softly, instead._

_i think i understand, i think i see that you are me not if i  had failed the den, but if the den had failed  me._

_what shall i do if i wake up and find they have failed me, after all? will you still be at that house, with that tree blooming so strange and beautiful above, when i call? will you still want to know me, if you do not need me?_

—

essek stands outside for too long, gets so distracted he lets his feet touch down for a moment, summons his courage to ask these people— who actually seem to like him? to _like_ him, and not use him, imagine that— for things, for anything in return for what he’s done for them.

he’s been building up favors, and now is the time to cash in— he wonders what they think he wants, is sure they’ll be taken aback that it’s something so selfish as friendship.

he waits until he thinks they owe him to the point that they shouldn’t refuse even if they don’t like him— they can’t, right, not really? they didn’t call when they found someone new, when they didn’t need him anymore— and he asks if he can come in for dinner. he asks if they’ll help him with research— help him, like a friend would do, like anyone in the den would do if they thought he was anything other than the umavi’s prodigy son, and how could he  _need_ help, he doesn’t  _need_ anyone.

he watches their tongues loosen with the wine— you know, he bought it months ago, when they moved in, he was going to give it as a housewarming gift but they asked if he would come in and it was like icemelt down his spine— and he trades them his fears, his doubts, one treason for another. they talk sacrilege over wine in the house the bright queen gifted, and then they ask essek if he’d like to join them in their hot tub.

it’s a thing he thinks over when he goes home and caleb almost follows— what he’d do, what he could do if caleb did, essek doesn’t even know. when he tries to sleep, when he rises early, earlier even than he does to meet the umavi, to make eight plates of breakfast.

when they don’t call and the breakfast grows cold in his parlor and dread sinks in him like a stone— they don’t want to see him, of course, they’ve already left, they have caleb to teleport now, they’ve gone to see the bright queen and he is already dead, standing sadly in his kitchen— and he retires to his study.

work, it keeps him from dreaming. the vial caleb had given him burns in his breast pocket— another time. he has committed enough treason lately— and he has almost forgotten that he didn’t clear the table when jester’s voice startles him so badly that he falls backward.

he’s halfway to the door before he remembers to put his mantle back on.

—

caleb picks nott up like he’s done it before.

essek does not remember if his mother would hold him. he imagines not— such distraction cannot be demanded of the umavi. of the illustrious den thelyss.

he learned to walk quietly so fast, so young— the noise bothered the umavi if he ran, if he fell. if he cried. his father taught him to float not much older— he learned so fast, his father had said to him. so smart.

but it was a parlor trick— his father would use it to scare the umavi— his mother, he used to call her that more, what changed, when did they break so completely— drawing up behind her when she was hard at work and surprising her, using the disruption to draw her away and towards essek.

when he first started to float again, weeks after the search party had returned, it made her smile, if sadly. now, the umavi does not blink.

( _what they don’t understand_ _,_ he thinks, watching the mighty nein watch his feet touch the ground,  _is that no one else does it.  __that i would stop, if i could._ )

that all is to say, the last time the umavi held essek was at his father’s funeral.  _he will come back_ , essek did not tell her, because it was not true. it was the last time anyone held him, until caleb pulls him in, too, scattering their papers so very haphazardly for what it is they bear.

caleb widogast, child of the empire, failed assassin with his lilting voice and his long red hair and his blue blue eyes, holds essek for the first time in a century. he smells of dust, of desperate sweat, of chocolate and of cat.

essek does not move. in his mind he holds on so tight his fingers pale. in his mind caleb widogast, failed assassin and failure in absolutely nothing besides, holds onto essek’s hand as they descend the stairs, and the expositor scrutinizes all she wishes.

in his mind they do not ask him to take them away from him. in his mind they ask if he would like to come.

in his mind he sits under the shade of that strange, strange tree. there is a cat curling and uncurling its strange little paws in his cloak. there is a harp, and beyond it the rumble of happy voices. the sounds of home.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hello @seafleece on tumblr! i write a lot of cr meta and fic these days and i might just write you something if you ask


End file.
